Our family tries hard to bring canvas bags when we go shopping at the grocery store and we actually feel guilty when we forget and come home with 20 or so of those cheap plastic petroleum products that cashiers hand out like it’s a contest to see who can get rid of them first. We often feel like outcasts when we check out and quickly throw our own canvas bags before the cashier is able to score a few new points. However something happened recently that made me feel like we are not as alone as we thought.

I don’t know, maybe it was the afterglow from the news reports about the recent Seattle bag tax initiative. Seattle grocery stores will begin charging for those environmental earthsores and the money collected will support environmental initiatives. But at my recent trips to two grocery stores on the west side, one cashier actually thanked me for bringing my own bag and at another the customer before me had her own canvas bag. At both stores we all discussed the issue and agreed Olympia should follow in Seattle’s footsteps.

Let’s not let the afterglow of the media coverage fade. Let’s use the enthusiasm in the grocery store checkout lines to pass our own bag tax in Olympia. Let’s use the money collected to enhance local green projects that will offset our petroleum and paper bag footprints.